Which, as I'm sure you'll admit, certainly seems draconian at first glance -- a reference to 21-year-old Calgarian Jessica Beaumont. What unfairness! What injustice! What Christian persecution! What ... what ... what the fuck?

A Calgary woman has been fined $1,500 and ordered to pay $3,000 in compensation to an Ottawa man after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal upheld a complaint about Internet hatred.

In a ruling released yesterday, the tribunal issued a permanent order requiring Jessica Beaumont, a 21-year-old Calgary retail clerk and self-described "full-time Nazi," to stop posting hate messages on the Internet.

I'm sorry ... this is your poster child for free speech persecution? What exactly is going on here? Oh ...

Between October 2003 and May 2006, Beaumont, writing under the pseudonym "Jessy Destruction," posted more than 1,000 messages on the Canadian forum of Stormfront.org, a U.S. neo-Nazi website. The messages included racial epithets, white supremacist literature and hatred directed against blacks, homosexuals, immigrants and Jews.

Yeeeaahhhhhh. So what precisely does this have to do with quoting Scripture? Whoops, there we go:

Tucked into the CHRC complaint, along with some of Jessica's rather unsavoury internet posts, were two Bible verses:

Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.

LEVITICUS 18:22

If a man lies with man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

LEVITICUS 20:13

So it really was just a verse from Scripture -- one which explicitly promotes the murder of gays. Well, well, well .... how about that?

Perhaps the most revealing thing about all of this is how Christians like Beaumont (and, by extension, the homophobic white supremacist Kate McMillan) insist on hiding behind Scripture to justify their racism and homophobia.

"It's only Scripture," they say, whining about how this is somehow trampling their right to religious expression, or something equally inane. Well, fine ... then why not suck it up and come right out and say what that verse really means, Kate -- that gays should be killed.

I'm sure Kate and her drooling following of equally pathetic racists and homophobes have no problem defending Beaumont's right to post that particular bit of Scripture. But are they equally prepared to defend Beaumont if Beaumont came right out and said gays should be killed, in exactly those words? Come on, kids, let's not cower behind the technicality of Scripture -- if you want to leap to Beaumont's defense, then come right out and say you agree with her and that homosexuals deserve death.

In fact, here's a public challenge to that rancid bigot Kate McMillan -- if you're going to publicly complain about Beaumont's sentence, then I want you to publish a front-page blog entry, stating clearly and unambiguously, "Gays should be killed."

Let's go, Kate. You want to offer Beaumont moral support? Then let's not beat around the bush, or hide behind Scripture. Show some spine, and come right out and let the world hear it -- Jessica Beaumont wants the right to publicly state that gays should be killed, and you're behind her 100 per cent. If you want to hang out in Jessica's corner, Kate, then at least have the fucking grapes to do it publicly and proudly.

Let's go, Kate. We're all waiting.

THAT'S SOME PRETTY SELECTIVE CONTEXT THERE. As Dr. Dawg points out in a comment on that earlier related post, it's amusing to watch the people staunchly defending Beaumont turn around and whine piteously about gays being hanged in Iran.

How about some consistency, folks? Either you want teh faggots killed or you don't. How hard a choice is that?

NOT SURPRISINGLY, I'm happy to make the same blog challenge to any other right-wing, Canadian whackjob that has the lack of sense to defend Jessica Beaumont, and should anyone be surprised to find this cretin doing just that?

To no one's amazement, "Canadian Sentinel" whinges on about Christian persecution, while conveniently omitting the text of Scripture in question. So, CS, time to put the money where the mouth is as well. "Gays should be killed." Or are we, as they say in Texas, all hat and no cattle?

42 comments:

That post at Sentinel's had me wondering this morning. These folks have to work SO hard, and lie SO much - to themselves and their readers - in order to get rage-aculation on - they have gotta be coming close to the point where they simply detach from what the rest of us have agreed to call "reality" and float away forever into the completely imaginary universe of their own contrivance.

It all comes down to--as cc has demonstrated very often--they just make shit up as they go along.first you show what the facts really are when they bloviate on some issue.so they attack you 'cause you're anon (or a lefty' or whatever they can come up with)then you call them on that and then they say, well no, they really didn't say whatever they said in the first place, or you misinterpreted them, or 'you got it all wrong!!!'then you quote their original stuff, with irrefutable proofs that they said what they did, and that it was wrong...then they just call you names and make shit up about you and what you said.seriously, how does anyone actually make any inroads into that territory?

It's scary to think that people like Rabbit don't even understand the power of expression, because they don't make any distinctions at all.

I will always support the right for people to use bad words to insult each other and for the right to offend...but I (and Canadian law) draws a line at a particular kind of expression...hate speech whose motivation is the desire to see classes of people eliminated.

I don't have time for these free speech absolutism arguments anymore, especially when they come from people who never say anything worth listening to at the best of times.

It doesn't have to be "exactly equivalent". If someone wanted to make the case that you are carrying out a systematic program of instigating hatred towards Christians, they would have no problem doing so. It wouldn't be fair or right, but that wouldn't matter - you would still be up in front of that tribunal.

"If someone wanted to make the case that you are carrying out a systematic program of instigating hatred towards Christians, they would have no problem doing so. It wouldn't be fair or right, but that wouldn't matter - you would still be up in front of that tribunal."

Well, I'll tell you what, rabbit ... why don't you make an official complaint about me to the Canadian Human Rights Commission? Stop pissing and moaning about what a terrible person I am, and file a legal complaint. And make sure you provide them with specific links to the blog entries of mine that explicitly advocate hatred against an identifiable demographic.

Go ahead, rabbit. Knock yourself out. And don't forget to tell us how that turns out. We'll all be waiting right here.

C'mon, Rabbit...I'm a Catholic and I can correctly sense what CC is saying when he lets loose on the Catholic Church. Anger and passion are not the same things as hate, and certainly not the type of hatred that motivates calls for extermination.

Rabbit, you're treading dangerous ground here. You are so determined to make CC out as the "bad guy" that you're going to find yourself justifying all sorts of horrible, inhumane, outright anti-human stuff before you're done, just so you can be right and he can be wrong.

That's a very slippery slope. Either you pay attention to real facts and real logic -- or you just give in and slide down to the bottom right now. Because that's where you're heading if you don't stop and THINK about what you're doing here.

Why would I file a complaint? I'm arguing for freedom of speech. I support people's right to way what they think.

I didn't say you were a terrible person, nor did I make you out to be the "bad guy", as phyl says.

I simply pointed out that you, like everyone else, are vulnerable to restrictions on speech. Indeed you, more than most bloggers, fully exploit the freedoms you have. Thus you had better think twice before you celebrate restrictions on other people's speech, no matter how much you detest them or their views.

At real risk of putting myself on the same side of an issue as SDA and other collections of racists, I really do think that Beaumont's freedom of speech rights are being curtailed here. Regardless of how putrescent her thoughts might be, she should have the freedom to express them.

Papering over the rot doesn't fix the wall. Banning racist speech does nothing to fix the problem of racism. Beaumont will still be a racist - but now we won't know it. Many people will assume the problem has been solved, when in fact it's festering away. And to achieve this extremely limited success we are willing to curtail one of our most fundamental liberties?

Let's work on eliminating racism rather than pretending it doesn't exist.

Final disclaimer: I would like to distance myself from Kate's "sleazy dishonesty" on this subject, and her many commenters' defenses of the sentiment that gays should be killed. And also Rabbit's attempts to compare Canadian Cynic with Stormfront. Ti-Guy can call me a "free speech absolutist" if he must.

If someone wanted to make the case that you are carrying out a systematic program of instigating hatred towards Christians, they would have no problem doing so.

I'm sure they wouldn't. I'm also sure they would make complete asses of themselves in doing so, and the resulting case would be weak. Anyone care to try? I'd love to see it.

I'm no fan of the hate speech laws, but isn't it funny how the right-wing racists and homophobes all seem to get the attention of the courts? Ever wonder to yourself why people like CC don't get these kinds of complaints filed?

criticism is not hate. anger is not hate. disgust and disdain are not hate. mockery and satire are not hate. what beaumont is being punished for is not simply hate, it is counselling to commit a crime. she is advocating violence, even fatal violence against a certain segment of the population. actually more than one subset of the population. she just has a slice of scripture that echoes her evil intent, that slice of levitcan bile that preaches the murder of homosexuals, which kate and her droogs have latched onto to twist the issue.

it is one thing to hate people. it is entirely another to advocate for their killing. i too am a strong believer in freedom of speech and expression, even when it is vile, vulgar or offensive. but this crosses a line. just as making threats against a person is not protected speech, neither is the speech for which ms. beaumont has been charged.

I don't see the actual advocation for violence in what Beaumont is described as having written: "racial epithets, white supremacist literature and hatred directed against blacks, homosexuals, immigrants and Jews".

Is quoting Leviticus 20:13 a modern-day advocation of murder? Or is it merely an argument that the Old Testament viewed homosexuality as an abomination? There's nothing here even as specific as "we should kill the gays".

Uttering threats is a crime; inciting violence is a crime. That much is just. I don't think what we have here qualifies.

If I had any reason to believe unfettered expressions of eliminationist rhetoric did anything to prevent appalling crimes against humanity (as in nazi Germany, Rwanda and...among our lovely neighbours to the South, with their history of slavery, lynchings and murdered gays right into the modern era...and let's not even mention the creeping fascism of late, shall we?), I'd feel differently about this. But that's obviously not the case.

Free speech absolutism requires the most offensive expression imaginable in order to have any definable reality, which is a curious symbiosis that guarantees nothing more than a cacophony of useless discussion and the marginalisation and radicalisation of people who are the targets of hate speech.

You can feel rigteous in supporting some sort of ideological purity, but when it comes at the expense of meaningful dialogue and progressive public discussion, then defending hate speech isn't going to be something that I will be very motivated to do.

Incidentally, this is the law that Beaumont was found to have transgressed:

Hate messages

13. (1) It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Guilty? Yes. Is this law just? Not in my opinion. Holy crap that's broad - no wonder Warman's been so successful. Rabbit may have a point; you could fall afoul of this legislation by writing that Americans are stupid.

TG: Yes, I am, and yes, I was aware that this was a human rights complaint, not a criminal one. That's actually been part of my point - it's the criminal law that specifies advocating violence - although maybe my terminology has been sloppy.

The section I quoted is from the Human Rights Act, not the Criminal Code. In this case I think the tribunal correctly interpreted the law, but the law itself is unjustly broad.

I really think we have to look at context--something the free speech defenders are unwilling to do. Beaumont wasn't merely transmitting a portion of Scripture in a neutral context. She quoted in in clear advocacy mode, with the implication that such murders are sanctioned.

Dawg: was she advocating or implying? I've looked for context. All I can find so far is a Bible verse as an argument that God hates gays. This is not a neutral context - it's made quite clear that Beaumont also hates gays - but neither is it "God hates gays so let's kill them".

I also support laws against advocating violence. No-one has charged her of this, to my knowledge. The Commission did not find that she advocated violence, it found that she had written messages that were "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that the person or persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination".

I realize that violence is not an explicit part of the charge, but I also know that it is only extremist statements of this type that tend to end up on the wrong side of HRCs. The statement, in its context, is certainly exposing gays to active expressions of hatred.

Yep, I made a single posting correcting some goomba who thought that hate speech laws could be applied far more broadly than the courts have yet done. But you'll notice I did not express an opinion in that posting about whether I actually agreed with the law as it now stands.

Sometimes I do state facts without expressing an opinion about what I think about them. Probably didn't feel like arguing that day.

The problem with that, ti-guy, is that people's interpretation of "nazi" changes by the day. Some day it might be you that gets called the nazi. And on that day, you'd better hope that even nazis have rights.

What are you talking about? Conservatives have been calling me a National Socialist (not to mention a Stalinist, a pedophile, an anti-semite...) for years now. Liberals have been collectively blamed for every single mass die-off since the Great Flood.

If society ever starts coming after people like me, then Canada as we know it will have ceased to exist long before then.

I didn't miss this bit, but it is a quotation; it's not her own words.

The statement, in its context, is certainly exposing gays to active expressions of hatred.

I don't deny that either - the complaint is valid under the law - but I disagree with the law. Ti-Guy's rather ironic statement is one that I'd been thinking of myself.

As to 'the Right, while I certainly don't want to speak for them: Kate's source seemed to be all upset that the Bible was being dragged into a complaint that she otherwise had no objection to. Many of these people are not exactly bastions of free speech, unless it's something they themselves want to say. Their bias is that "Liberal" institutions are out to destroy Christianity, and this story confirms it.

I don't disagree with hate speech laws at all. Just like freedom of religion also means freedom from religion, freedom of speech also means freedom from speech. And frankly, I shouldn't have to be subject to people advocating for the genocide of some of my friends.

Tis isn't about "free speech" at all. I am a "free speech absolutist" like Adam, but making this about "free speech" is playing the game the right wants you to play. Don't do it.

No, this is about unprincipled hypocrisy. This is about the right coddling and supporting self-professed Nazis who are clearly advocating violence and genocide, who would happily murder even their supporters (Jessy wouldn't give Dr. Roy the time of day, let alone allow him to live if she had the power) for the convenience that their ideas coincide. They both hate gays and love the Bible. The right wants to make this about Christian persecution and anti-gay politics, rather than about a person that supports murder and genocide.

Of course, the right in question would never support anyones right to speak out against Israel (which I'm pretty sure Jessy would do). If I advocated that every BT be rounded up and shot in the back of the head, they certainly wouldn't support my right to say that. They don't seem to want to support the unlimited free speech of people who want us out of Afghanistan - you know, the treasonous traitors like Taliban Jack who should be charged and jailed for even suggesting we pull out.

They don't give a damn about free speech, they want to justify their hatred of gays and feel like a victim of persecution, as some Christians are wont to do.

They only want free speech for ideas the agree with and they will get in bed with any slimey bastard that agrees with them, no matter how repugnant.

In short, the don't want free speech at all and value the opinions of Nazis (yes, actual Nazis in this case) over gays and non-Christians. They are authoritarian scum pretending this is about some little girls quoting the Bible.

After the Vancouver tasering incident, Canadian comment boards were filled with calls for violence to be used against police officers. Yet that's "free speech" and calls to put all the darkies back on the boat is "hate speech". Right. The reason why bloggers who say so-and-so right-wing politician ought have a broomstick shoved up his behind aren't complained about before "human rights tribunals" is because hate and calls for violence *against so-called right wingers* is perfectly legal in much of the West, while posting an argument questioning the Holocaust is illegal.